Men's Tennis Super Six: Texas A&M
8/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Aug. 14, 2008
HOUSTON - The 2007-08 Rice men's tennis season culminated with the Owls earning their sixth consecutive NCAA Tournament bid. The Owls finished No. 22 in the ITA rankings as Bruno Rosa earned NCAA All-American accolades.
Before the fall season gets underway in September officially turning the calendar to the 2008-09 season, RiceOwls.com will re-live last season's top six moments. Today, RiceOwls.com features No. 24 Rice's 4-3 Senior Day triumph over No. 21 Texas A&M as the No. 5 moment.
Rice entered the A&M match after dropping back-to-back Conference USA decisions against No. 12 Tulsa and No. 60 SMU. The Owls were out for revenge after Texas A&M knocked Rice out of the NCAA Tournament in 2007.
"Historically, we haven't played our best matches against the Aggies," assistant coach Efe Ustundag said. "Texas A&M always seemed to find a way to beat us, even our best team in 2004. We got off to a great start in last year's match at the NCAA Tournament and then things just fell apart. After losing the way we did to Tulsa and SMU, A&M match was a gut-check match for our team."
The Aggies (10-9) grabbed the early doubles edge as No. 48 ranked Conor Pollock and Austin Krajicek edged No. 22 ranked Ralph Knupfer and Christoph Müller 8-5 in the top spot.
The Owls fought back behind No. 3 pair Bruno Rosa and Dennis Polyakov evened the doubles tally with an 8-6 triumph over Matt Bain and Chris Chirico.
Texas A&M responded to secure the doubles point as Mike Beatty and Wil Spencer outlasted Chong Wang and Tobias Scheil 8-6 in the No. 2 match.
"Losing the doubles point wasn't the type of start we were hoping for against Texas A&M," Ustundag said. "We lost a lot of doubles points throughout the season, but our spirit was never down after that. I give our players a lot of credit for not letting what happened in doubles carry over to the singles."
No. 27 ranked Rosa pulled the Owls back to 1-1 with a 6-3, 6-2 win over No. 15 ranked Pollock at the top of the lineup. The Brazilian took control of the match halfway through the opening set and won nine of the final 11 games.
Wang used his strong serve in the No. 4 match against Chirico to take the opening frame, 6-1. Chirico regrouped and held a 4-3 lead before Wang reeled off three consecutive games to give Rice a 2-1 edge.
A&M's Krajicek notched a 6-2, 6-4 victory against Knupfer in the No. 3 hole to even the score at 2-2, but No. 49 ranked Müller swiped the momentum right back for Rice at the No. 2 spot emerging with a 6-1, 7-6 (1) win over No. 90 ranked Spencer.
Both matches at the bottom of the lineup headed to a third set. Filip Zivojinovic and Polyakov took control of the deciding frames early for the Owls.
Polyakov turned back Kayvon Karimi with a hard-fought 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 win at No. 6 to clinch the victory. Zivojinovic couldn't hold a 5-2 advantage in the final frame as Bain charged back to a 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory for the final margin of 4-3.
"Looking back, there were some quality wins that afternoon," Ustundag said. "Dennis had been struggling and it was huge for his confidence to clinch that match for us. I wish that Filip would have been able to close out it out to make it a 5-2 win."
The win snapped Rice's two-match losing streak to give the Owls some much-needed momentum heading into the Conference USA Tournament. The No. 4 moment will be released on August 21st.
Players Mentioned
